The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Michael's Mission in the World Age of Human Freedom

[ 1 ] If one approaches Michael's work in the present with spiritual experience, one finds the possibility of gaining spiritual scientific insight into the cosmic essence of freedom.

[ 2 ] This does not refer to my "philosophy of freedom". This emerges from the purely human powers of cognition themselves, if these can enter the field of the spirit. In order to recognize what is recognized here, it is not yet necessary to merge with beings from other worlds. However, one can say that the "philosophy of freedom" prepares us to recognize through freedom what can then be experienced in spiritual union with Michael.

[ 3 ] And that is the following.

[ 4 ] If freedom is really to live in human action, then what is accomplished in its light must not be dependent in any way on the human physical and ethereal organization. The "free" can only take place out of the "I"; and the astral body must be able to resonate with the free activity of the "I" so that it can transfer it to the physical and etheric body. -But this is only one side of the matter. The other becomes clear in connection with Michael's mission. - What is experienced by man in freedom must not affect his etheric or physical body in any way. If this were to happen, man would have to emerge completely from what he has become in the stages of his development under the influence of the divine-spiritual beingness and the divine-spiritual revelation.

[ 5 ] What man experiences through that which is only divine-spiritual work in his environment may only have an influence on his spiritual (his I). Only that which continues in the current of development not in its environment but within its beingness itself from that which had its beginning in the beingness and revelation of the divine-spiritual can have an influence on its physical and etheric organization. This, however, must not interact in the human being with that which lives in the element of freedom.

[ 6 ] This is only possible because Michael carries over from the distant past of development something that gives man a connection with the divine-spiritual, which in the present no longer intervenes in the physical and etheric formation. In this way, within Michael's mission, the ground develops for an intercourse of man with the spiritual world that does not reach over into the natural at all.

[ 7 ] It is uplifting to see how, through Michael, man's essence is lifted up into the spiritual sphere, while the unconscious, the subconscious, which unfold under the sphere of freedom, grow ever deeper together with the material.

[ 8 ] Man's position in relation to the world being will continue to become more and more incomprehensible to him if he does not allow himself to recognize not only his relationship to natural beings and natural processes but also such relationships as that to the Michael mission. - One gets to know the relationships to nature like something that one looks at from the outside; those to the spiritual world proceed from something that is, so to speak, an inner conversation with a being, to which one has opened access by entering into the spiritual view of the world.

[ 9 ] In order to be able to live the impulses of freedom, man must therefore be able to keep away from this being certain effects of nature that have an impact on his being from within the cosmos. This keeping away takes place in the subconscious mind when the forces are at work in the conscious mind which represent the life of the ego in freedom. For the human inner perception, the consciousness of working in freedom is there; for the spiritual beings who are in contact with man from other spheres of the world, it is different. The being from the Hierarchy of the Angeloi, who has to do with the continuation of the human being from earth life to earth life, immediately becomes aware of this in relation to human action in freedom: man pushes away from himself cosmic forces that want to further educate him, that want to give his ego organization the necessary physical supports, as they gave it before the Michael Age.

[ 10 ] Michael, as a being from the hierarchy of the Archangeloi, receives his impressions with the help of the beings from the Angeloi hierarchy. He dedicates himself to the task of supplying man with powers from the spiritual part of the cosmos in the manner described here, which can replace those suppressed from the natural existence.

[ 11 ] He achieves this by bringing his effectiveness into the most perfect harmony with the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 12 ] In the activity of the Christ within the earthly development lie the forces which man needs in working through freedom to balance suppressed natural impulses. - But man must then really bring his soul into the inner coexistence with Christ, of which we have already spoken here in these messages about the Michael mission.

[ 13 ] The human being knows himself in a reality when he faces the physical sun and receives warmth and light through it.

[ 14 ] So he must live facing the spiritual sun, Christ, which has united its existence with earthly existence, and receive from it alive in the soul that which corresponds to warmth and light in the spiritual world.

[ 15 ] He will feel permeated by the "spiritual warmth" when he experiences the "Christ in himself". Feeling this penetration, he will say to himself: this warmth releases your human being from the bonds of the cosmos in which it is not allowed to remain. The divine-spiritual being of primeval times had to lead you to the attainment of freedom in regions in which it could not remain with you, but in which it gave you the Christ, that its powers bestow on you as a free human being what the divine-spiritual being of primeval times once gave you on the path of nature, which at that time was also the spiritual path. This warmth leads you back to the divine from which you originated.

[ 16 ] And in this feeling, the experience in and with Christ and the experience of genuine and true humanity will grow together in the human being in an intimate warmth of soul. "Christ gives me my humanity", this will blow through the soul as a basic feeling. And once this feeling is present, then comes the other, in which the human being feels lifted above mere earthly existence through Christ, in that he feels at one with the starry environment of the earth and with everything that can be recognized in this starry environment as divine-spiritual.

[ 17 ] And so with the spiritual light. Man can fully feel himself in his human nature by becoming aware of himself as a free individuality. But a darkening is connected with this. The divine-spiritual of primeval times no longer shines. In the light that the Christ brings to the human ego, the primal light is there again. In such a life together with the Christ, the blissful thought can shine through the whole soul like the sun: The ancient-glorious divine light is there again; it shines, although its glow is not a natural one. And man unites himself in the present with the spiritual cosmic luminous forces of the past, in which he was not yet a free individuality. And in this light he can find the paths that lead his human being right, if he connects himself understandingly in his soul with the Michael mission.

[ 18 ] Then the human being will feel the impulse in the spirit-warmth that carries him over into his cosmic future in such a way that he can remain faithful to the original gifts of his divine-spiritual entities, even though he has developed into a free individuality in their worlds. And in the spiritual light he will feel the power which, perceiving, leads him with ever higher and wider consciousness to the world in which he finds himself as a free human being with the gods of his origin.

[ 19 ] To persist in the original being, to want to retain the original naive goodness of the gods reigning in man and to tremble back before the full use of freedom, leads man in this world of the present, in which everything is predisposed to the development of his freedom, yet to Lucifer, who wants to know the present world denied.

[ 20 ] To surrender to the present being, to allow the naturalness of the world that is now accessible to the intellect, which is neutral towards goodness, to reign alone and to experience the use of freedom only in the intellect, that leads man in this world of the present, in which the development must be continued in deeper regions of the soul, where freedom reigns in the upper regions, to Ahriman, who wants the present world to be completely transformed into a cosmos of the intellectual being.

[ 21 ] In such regions, in which man feels his gaze towards the outer world falling spiritually on Michael, his gaze towards the inner soul spiritually on Christ, that security of soul and spirit thrives through which he will be able to walk that cosmic path on which he will find his right future perfection without losing his origin.

---

Further guiding principles sent out by the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (with reference to the preceding presentation of the Michael and Christ experience through man)

[ 22 ] 118. A free action can only be that in which no natural event in or outside the human being is involved.

[ 23 ] 119. The polar opposite to this is that in the free action of human individuality, a natural event is suppressed in it, which would be there in the case of unfree action and would give the human being its cosmically predetermined form.

[ 24 ] 120. This formation, which does not come to man, who in his being lives together with the present and future stage of world development, in a natural way, comes to him in a spiritual way through connecting with Michael, through which he also finds the way to Christ.